


Little Reggie Peters Sleeps Under The docks

by Random_Nerd3



Series: All Things JatP By Random_Nerd3 [55]
Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: 90's fic, Angst, Anyways, Bisexual Reggie Peters (Julie and The Phantoms), Boys Kissing Boys, Gay, Gay Panic, Gen, Getting Together, Good Friend Alex Mercer (Julie and The Phantoms), Good Friend Luke Patterson (Julie and The Phantoms), Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Reggie Peters Angst (Julie and The Phantoms), Reggie Peters's Flannel (Julie and The Phantoms), Sad Reggie Peters (Julie and The Phantoms), am I back?, i wrote this at midnight, inspired by King By The Amazing Devil, no beta I die eating hot dogs, soft ending i promise, who knows - Freeform, wtf is this even
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-14 19:41:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28551030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Random_Nerd3/pseuds/Random_Nerd3
Summary: The ocean's waves were growing higher and higher and the sea swirling around in his mind was going to turn into a typhoon when he finally learned the truth.The waves crashed and the seagulls cried and Reggie Peters sat alone under the docks with his knees pulled to his chest and saltwater tears streaking down his face because life wasn’t fair so he sat on his rock like a king waiting to be rescued when he knew in his soul no help was coming.
Relationships: Alex Mercer & Luke Patterson & Reggie Peters (Julie and The Phantoms), Reggie Peters/Alex Mercer, Reggie Peters/Alex Mercer/Luke Patterson, Reggie Peters/Luke Patterson
Series: All Things JatP By Random_Nerd3 [55]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1939114
Comments: 20
Kudos: 118





	Little Reggie Peters Sleeps Under The docks

**Author's Note:**

> Hi!
> 
> This fic was inspired by The Amazing Devil, I love them so much go dive them a listen! Anyways I hope you enjoy angst. 
> 
> ~ R

Reggie can remember the first night he spent here, curled up under the wooden docks close by his house, but far enough away so he can’t hear the screaming anymore. It was his  _ place. _ It’s been his place since he was a kid - he even used his pocket knife to engrave a little R P on one of the support planks to claim it as his own. No one else comes here, underneath the docks. It’s dark and it’s muddy and half the time the tides are so high Reggie has to cuff his jeans and hang his sneakers around his neck so they don’t get soaked but this is  _ his _ place. Just far enough away from his house - only a few blocks away - but far enough away so he can’t hear the screaming anymore.

He still hears screaming though.

Instead of voices, now the screaming is in the waves of the sea, the vast dark ocean in front of him. Reggie listens to the ocean yell at him, they roar louder than anything else he’s ever heard before. The waves swirl around his ankles like there’s a tornado in the sea threatening to suck him down into it, to sink to the ocean floor like one of the many ships that get lost at sea. Booming claps of thunder sound overhead as saltwater mist sprays in his direction, soaking him all the way through his flannel - he didn’t have time to grab his jacket before he left. 

When the waves recede from the sand dunes there are a few young turtles left behind on the shore. Reggie helps guide them back into the choppy cold waves they call their home -  _ home, what was it really? _ Reggie thinks as he sits back down in his spot under the docks. It really is  _ his _ spot isn’t it? This, the hiding under the docks, it’s not a Sunset Curve thing. It’s not even a Luke, Alex, and Reggie thing. It’s a Reggie thing. Just Reggie. His heart twists at the thought of his bandmates, something coiling through his rib cages like a snake constricting around his still-beating heart. This time his parents weren’t the reason behind his dock adventures tonight. Luke and Alex were… and maybe Bobby.

He’d shown up to band practice fifteen minutes early - too early to be counted as late which meant Luke couldn’t lecture him about the importance of arriving on time. Bobby was usually the latest out of all of them and he literally  _ lived in the house next door to the studio they played in. _ In all honesty he just wanted to get out of the house - his parents were getting worse than ever before… 

The memory was fresh in Reggie’s mind, he snuck into the studio early with one goal in mind, playing his banjo before anyone else got there so Luke couldn’t complain about it. He could work on a few of his own songs. Luke was the songwriter for the band but that didn’t mean Reggie couldn’t try, right? It had been so long since he played so sue him. Luke’s guitar was his soul? Reggie’s banjo was his. His soul, that is, the music tied around the complicated knots and shadows and secrets Reggie had spent the past six months keeping under lock and key in the back of his mind. He wasn’t - he wasn’t gay. He liked girls, girls were fun and they were cute and they had soft lips but… but Alex, Luke, and Bobby were also fun and cute and Luke looked adorable when he was flustered by something (usually a certain knowing look Alex shot in his direction) and Bobby looked  _ hot  _ in those suspenders and Alex - Reggie shook his head as the storm raged around him, the thunder of footsteps overhead as the docks shook under the night foot traffic.

This morning Reggie’s storm was manageable. Maybe his parents made the thunder clap louder. Maybe his own insecurities and anxieties made the lightning flash brighter and the storms grow higher but the catalyst that set him off for tonight?

_ He caught Alex and Luke kissing each other on the floor of the studio with their shirts off. _

If just catching them together wasn’t enough - Luke and Alex sharing a long intimate kiss on the floor of the studio with _ their shirts on the ground behind them -  _ when they both finally realized Reggie had arrived early Alex asked him to  _ join in on the fun. _ Yeah, maybe if Alex and Luke were to say… Jesssica and Cassie from history class instead Reggie would jump at the chance but this was  _ Alex and Luke. _ These were his friends, his brothers - the winds whistled in his head as a new wave of water caked another layer of wet sand onto his bare feet. Reggie curled up tighter on the sand, pulling his knees to his chest as he rocked himeslef on the sandy beach of LA.

He wasn’t gay, not like Alex was at least. Alex said he only liked boys and yeah that’s fine with Reggie, he doesn’t care about that but the storm tearing apart his mind is telling Reggie that  _ he _ likes both boys and girls which… wasn’t possible right? And does it count if the only boys he actually likes are his bandmates? They’re just that.. Bandmates, friends,  _ brothers. _ They don’t kiss… except Alex and Luke apparently do.

The storm swirls in his mind in tandem with the beat of the waves crashing onto the little rock he’s sitting on, his knees pulled tightly to his chest with his arms wrapped around his legs. He’s hiding - that’s what Reggie always does when an issue pops up and he doesn’t know how to deal with it. Like the storms that hide the crystal blue sky and the heat of the California sun, Reggie hides his warmth. He saw Luke and Alex kissing LukeandAlex  _ kissing _ and he took his sun and he buried it so far deep inside his chest under lock and key he knew he’d be able to ignore it. After today though, because Alex and Luke kissed… and it looked  _ hot _ when they did it.

It’s like a nursery rhyme, Reggie muses to himself as his sand coated feet start to dry only for a new round of waves to crash over them.  _ Little Reggie Peters sleeps under the docks _ ,  _ hiding from his friends who’s friendship with him will never last _ . Dust from the wood above him fell onto his hair when loud, thundering footsteps shook the dock supports, forcing him to sit up better without the extra help. “ _ Sometimes it’s the feeling of being safe…” _ Reggie says with a hum, a new melody forming in his head - lyrics and chords. The notes were threading through his storm clouds, a break in the raging thunder around him as he thought more about the song, about the melody. 

He’d have to go back to the studio to actually compose it though and  _ that _ was something he didn’t want to do. Ever. Call him childish or a fool sure yeah maybe he is being stupid. It was just a kiss right? It’s not like Alex and Luke were… secretly dating right? Alex and Luke with their warm hugs and reassuring smiles and the strength Reggie pulls from them whenever they so much as glance in his direction. 

Whenever he jumped between them and inserted himself into their cuddles and their nights out and just… _ Reggie _ should’ve been able to tell something else was going on. That the waves were growing higher and higher and the sea swirling around in his mind was going to turn into a typhoon when he finally learned the truth. When he finally realized the real dynamic between the band, the reason why Bobby gagged whenever Alex leaned down to whisper something into Luke’s ear that made him flush bright red. When Luke and Alex started to share the lazy boy in Bobby’s living room during movie nights instead of letting Reggie take shelter from his storm and snuggle between them.

Luke and Alex were dating. 

Without him.

The storm around him rages on, the angry waves of the sea cutting away at the dunes of sand between his toes. The storm rages on in his mind  _ \- girls and boys and Luke and Alex and  _ \- Reggie squeezes his eyes shut to cut off  _ that _ train of thought. Maybe he shouldn’t care about it so much. He was definitely overreacting - it was  _ one kiss _ . It could’ve been a dare. It could’ve happened by accident… except it didn’t. 

If Alex’s completely relaxed state was anything to go by. If Luke’s fluttering eyes and the hand tugging at Alex’s hair was anything to go by. If the drummer’s hand pressed spread against Luke’s heart was anything to go by… their kiss said so much more than it just being a dare or a game to pass the time. It was serene. It was beautiful. It meant  _ love. _

The waves crashed and the sound of the seagulls crying overhead echoed in his mind as Reggie Peters sat alone under the docks with his knees pulled to his chest. Saltwater tears were streaming down his face now, because life wasn’t fair. So the dark things can’t wait anymore as he sits on his rock, waiting under the docks as the storms rage on living with the knowledge that there isn’t a lighthouse shining his way home anymore. That his waves were too dark and too choppy and he was sinking through the depths of the great blue sea in the darkness of the shadows whistling like wind in his mind.

Wasn’t he good enough for them? He knew he was all kinds of messed up in the head but if Reggie knew one thing - he loved his bandmates (yes even Bobby). He loved them so much it hurt his heart knowing they were probably kissing each other without kissing him. He loved them so much that he knew if they wanted each other and not him he at least had the docks.

His safe space. -  _ it’s the feeling of being safe. _

The swirling, twisting, shadows and wind had calmed down enough for Reggie to hear voices calling his name above the docks. Above the noise of the sea and the crashing of the waves, above the chaos coiling around in his mind like a snake slithering through the cracks in the back of his head.  _ “Reggie where are you?” _ The voices asked, calling out like a lighthouse in the middle of his storm. His lighthouse hadn’t disappeared, it didn’t get swallowed up by the darkness of the storm. He found it. Something to signal him home - the voice - he knew the voice he just couldn’t place it. The winds were too loud and the clouds were too dark but he heard the voice - it was warm, the voice was kind. The person also sounded worried… or maybe scared? Either way Reggie trusted the voice, he knew the person the voice belonged to.

“ _ I got him Luke, he’s down here!” _

Suddenly Little Reggie Peters isn’t alone under the docks anymore. A hand is on his shoulder, a finger tipping his chin up so he could see Alex’s face, concern and worry reflecting in his eyes.  _ Alex? _ Reggie thought, furrowing his eyebrows in confusion. “Alex?” He asks, despite being surrounded by the harsh crashing waves of the sea his throat is dry and his voice is cracky when he speaks. The drummer nods at him and pulls him in for a tight hug - the warmth of Alex’s sweatshirt was a vast difference compared to Reggie’s own seawater-soaked flannel and jeans. “Alex,” Reggie says again, though this time it’s half in disbelief and half in awe.

Sunlight started to peek through the clouds in his mind as he latches onto Alex tighter -  _ please don’t go, _ Reggie thinks as his fists twist into the back of Alex’s sweatshirt.  _ Please don’t go. _

“Reggie! Thank god,” Luke exclaimed, tripping down the sand dunes as he ran to them - to Reggie. When he got there he too pulled Reggie in for a hug which was appreciated but now Reggie was confused. He’s confused about a lot of things to be honest but right now this was the most confusing. Before he could say anything Alex pulled off his pink hoodie and shoved it onto Reggie, helping him pull his arms through the sleeves carefully. The sweatshirt still got wet - his flannel was soaked - but the warmth and texture of the fabric was welcome. Reggie just got even more confused because Alex treated him like… like he was something precious, like he was treasure lost at the bottom of the sea and they discovered him.

_ The people you come home to at the end of the day. _

“Luke?” Reggie asks, smacking his lips together. All the saltwater and the tears - his mouth was really dry right now. Luke nods and runs a hand through Reggie’s hair as Alex grabs hold of his hands. Reggie squeezes them back tightly as he blinks water out of his eyes.  _ Don’t go, please don’t go. _

“Never do that again okay? We were scared,” Luke says and, kneeling next to him on the sand Alex nods in agreement. Reggie furrows his eyebrows together, they had each other. What were they scared of?   
  


“We were scared?” Reggie repeats, his voice overcome by the howling winds and choppy waves of the sea. He feels… weird. Like he’s there but he’s not actually  _ there. _ Like he’s watching the scene in third person and he wants to hug Luke back, to thank Alex for the warmth of his sweatshirt but - “people only share sweatshirts if they’re dating.” He says flatly, he looked at Luke and Alex with eyes void of emotion except the chaotic storm wrapping around his mind. Alex exchanges a glance with Luke then Luke leans forward and touches their foreheads together. It’s nice, it’s intimate, it doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.

“Scared we were going to lose you before we got to tell you -” Luke says before he cuts himself off. He lowers his hand from being curved around the back of Reggie’s neck to spread it over his heart, just like Reggie saw Alex due to Luke when they were back at the studio kissing each other. 

“Tell me?” He asks, the waves crash around him, cutting into the shore, but the only sound he can hear is the thudding of his own heart as the soft pitter patter grows faster at each touch from them he gets. Alex’s eyes are watery as he nods but he doesn’t look sad. There’s a smile on his face and happiness in his eyes and he doesn’t deserve the depths of Reggie’s storm. Neither of them do. But they don’t seem to care about that… apparently.

“Reggie,” Alex says softly, leaning forward to whisper it like it’s a secret. “We both love you.” Reggie knows the answer to this question - familial love. Because that’s all they’ve ever had for each other well… except Reggie. But his feelings only work one way… right? Reggie turns to Alex and reaches out to spread his fingers over his chest with a nod.

“Love you too. We’re brothers,” Reggie says and Luke’s face warps into confusion and he instantly drops his hand from Alex’s chest and curls back into himself. The crashing waves cut into the warmth of his family surrounding him, soaking Reggie’s feet once more as the night tide rises to shore.

“No - hey, Reggie I’m not angry at you. We Love  _ love _ you Reggie. Not like brothers. Like… like more than friends,” Luke says trying and failing to explain how things went so wrong just when they were getting good. Alex pushes Luke into the sea and Luke pops his head up with a puppy pout on his face but his eyes are sparkling mischievously as he shakes out his hair to dry it, walking back over to where they were standing. With his focus back on Reggie Alex looks at him seriously. The waves cutting through his own mind make it impossible for Reggie to hear the ocean anymore.

“Ignore Luke he’s bad at explaining things,” Alex says as he runs a hand through Reggie’s hair and suddenly a new wave of exhaustion crashes through his bones and Reggie sags into Alex’s chest. “It’s okay Reggie, we love you,” the drummer says, pulling him close. “We love you so much,” Alex kisses the top of Reggie’s head and the sun streams through the thunder clouds above them. When Alex pulls away from Reggie he kisses Reggie’s forehead, then his cheeks, then his mouth - wait what? - . 

“You… love me?” Reggie asks, his voice disconnected from his body lost to the storm in the sea. Alex nods and gently cups Reggie’s cheek with his right hand, the drumstick calluses were rough on his skin but the touch was soft and Reggie savored it. Leaning forward Reggie pressed a kiss on Alex’s nose making him blink in surprise, then Reggie pulled Luke down to his knees and kissed  _ him _ on the nose as well. “Love you both too,” Reggie says as the storm starts to settle and the tsunami sized waves fall apart just as they crest, threatening to crash over everything he’s built for himself. Alex lets out a grateful laugh and pulls him in for a hug, Reggie can feel Luke sandwich him in and he can’t help but relax.

“Ugh,” Alex says, sniffing at Reggie’s ruined flannel and Luke’s seawater soaked muscle tee. “We should get back to the studio to get you two dried off. Bobby’s probably got some spare towels.” Reggie grins at Alex then shakes out his hair so water sprays in his direction making Alex let out a squeak of disgust as he scoots away from him in the wet sand. Luke distracts Reggie from his attack by kissing him on the lips and  _ wow _ Reggie can totally get what Sydney Crawford from second grade was talking about when Luke kissed her during a game of spin the bottle. 

Tonight little Reggie Peters doesn’t sleep under the docks.

Tonight he sleeps at home, where he’s squashed between the boys he loves on a shitty fifty dollar mattress with four walls surrounding them keeping them dry.

The storm rages on, but Reggie’s found his lighthouse. Reggie has found his sun again, and for the first time since the waves roared in his ears Reggie stopped listening for them.

**Author's Note:**

> Yell at me on Tumblr: @Random-Nerd-3


End file.
